The registered hilltop monastery on Khao Buat Nak facing the confluence, whose open-sided ordination hall is known as the hall the devas built and whose founding no document establishes at all.
วัดจอมคีรีนาคพรต · Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot
| Official name | วัดจอมคีรีนาคพรต — Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot |
|---|---|
| Where | Nakhon Sawan Ok, Mueang Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Sawan |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, pp. 3687–3688, 8 March B.E. 2478 — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร กำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ, section 35, จังหวัดนครสวรรค์, which lists วัดจอมคีรีนาคพรต under อำเภอปากน้ำโพ ตำบลนครสวรรค์. Both parts of the 1935 address have moved. The district อำเภอปากน้ำโพ is today อำเภอเมืองนครสวรรค์, and the subdistrict the instrument gives as ตำบลนครสวรรค์ is carried by the register today as ตำบลนครสวรรค์ออก. The monument number and the coordinate are the department's own, from its register read on 28 September 2026, and place the temple on Khao Buat Nak on the east bank, which is where the Tourism Authority's map pin also falls, to within about sixty metres. |
| Coordinates | 15.682329, 100.121580 Fine Arts Department national ancient monument register, monument 0003905 วัดจอมคีรีนาคพรต, ตำบลนครสวรรค์ออก อำเภอเมืองนครสวรรค์ — checked against the Tourism Authority's own map pin for the same temple, which falls within about sixty metres |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
The gap between the two halves here is the whole point of this record. There is no founding date of any kind — not a disputed one, not a chronicle one, none — and the earliest hard fact about the place is a registration in 1935 under a name given in the reign of Rama V. Everything older is legend, and this page keeps it as legend.
Khao Buat Nak rises on the east bank of the Chao Phraya just below the confluence, between the foot of the Dechatiwong Bridge and the army camp, and the monastery on it is the counterpart of the one on Khao Kop across the water. The two were registered in the same instrument on the same day in 1935, and between them they hold the two hills that define the town. This one is laid out in two halves: the ordination hall, the vihara, the mondop and the chedis are up on the summit, and the preaching hall and the monks' quarters are at the foot of the hill where the community's life happens.
What people come for is the ordination hall at the bottom, which everyone calls โบสถ์เทวดาสร้าง, the hall the devas built. It is an open pavilion in an older manner, with no walls on any of its four sides, a teak roof structure and tiles above. The Tourism Authority is clear that nobody knows when it was put up. The story attached to it is that the villagers set the posts and the roof frame, and that one night music and a great noise and a light were heard and seen over the summit; when they went up to look the work was finished, untouched by anyone, and they stopped. About four hundred metres away is a second hill the local people call เขาโรงครัว, the kitchen hill, where rocks in the shape of a mortar and of kitchen things are pointed out as where the devas cooked.
The images are the other reason to climb. The principal Buddha, Phra Si Sanphet, sits in a glass-house arch whose crest is a three-headed naga, on a base attended by six yaksha figures which the Tourism Authority names as Alavaka, Vessavana and others. Behind it stands a second image the same source calls Phra Phuttha Thanyadon. There is also a mondop four wa square with a chedi-shaped crown, sheltering four replica Buddha footprints set one within another, and among several chedis one that is old and large.
The monastery keeps its year by the river. In the twelfth lunar month it holds งานวัดเขา, the hill temple fair, at which the replica footprints are venerated and gilded, and which — this being a confluence town — is run alongside long-boat racing. That is the same lunar month in which the province's better-known boat races fall, and it is a reminder that the two hill monasteries here are river monuments as much as they are hill ones.
โบสถ์เทวดาสร้าง, the open-sided ordination hall at the foot of the hill: a pavilion with no walls on any of its four sides, a teak roof structure and tiled covering, of a date the Tourism Authority says is not known.
Phra Si Sanphet, the principal image, seated in an arched glass-house surround crested with a three-headed naga, on a base attended by six yaksha figures.
The mondop on the summit, four wa by four wa with a chedi finial, sheltering four replica Buddha footprints set one inside another.
An octagonal chedi standing beside a vihara of the reign of Rama IV, the eight sides being read as the Noble Eightfold Path.
An old bell, which the Tourism Authority puts at the reign of Rama V or Rama VI and which was rung to mark the hours, with dozens of smaller hanging bells around the site.
เขาโรงครัว, a second hill about four hundred metres off, where rock formations resembling a mortar and other kitchen equipment are shown.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | A working monastery. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the ordination hall, the vihara and the mondop. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | On the east bank between the foot of the Dechatiwong Bridge and Camp Chiraprawat, about a kilometre from the centre of town. From Highway 32, the Asian Highway, turn left before the bridge. A metalled road runs up to the summit, so the upper terrace can be reached by car. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
Because of a story, and the Tourism Authority carries it as one. The villagers are said to have raised the posts and roof frame of the ordination hall and then heard music and a great noise and seen lights over the hill one night; in the morning the work was found complete with nobody having touched it, so they stopped. Nobody knows when the hall was actually built.
That is a legend rather than a record. The Tourism Authority reports a tradition that after the second Burmese taking of the old capital the soldiers built the temple together to show that they too were Buddhists. No document read for this entry supports it, and no founding date for the monastery is established by anything.
A metalled road runs to the summit, so the upper terrace with the ordination hall, the mondop and the chedis can be reached by car. The turning is off Highway 32 just before the Dechatiwong Bridge, about a kilometre from the centre of Nakhon Sawan.
In the twelfth lunar month, when the replica Buddha footprints in the mondop are venerated and gilded. The Tourism Authority records that the fair is held alongside long-boat racing, which is the season for it on this river.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Nakhon Sawan’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.